


The Unabridged Tale of Queen Vanessa

by QueenOfGlitch



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 02:19:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18955915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfGlitch/pseuds/QueenOfGlitch
Summary: Vanessa recounts her own backstory. This technically applies to the Diary AU, but can also be used generally. You'll learn more about the chameleon person there, though.Lots of self blame, self punishment, self demonization, she even tries to kill herself, trigger warning for suicide.





	The Unabridged Tale of Queen Vanessa

Mother and Father were hiding in the attic again. They'd forbidden me to explore up there, but their voices carried more than they thought. I could tell that whatever it was that they had, it excited them, perhaps in a dangerous way. They talked of how it would change their lives forever, and how all they needed was a piece.. of something. I couldn't hear what, but you can probably guess.

Then they came. A chameleon mage with a long cloak showed up at our manor's door, claiming that we had something of theirs.

Mother told me to leave, so I did. Perhaps that was a mistake, but I continued watching nonetheless.  
The chameleon told my mother that they knew how to find what it was they needed. Mother declared that we would not let a strange person, from another kingdom, presumably, rummage through our manor for reasons they refused to give.

A fight broke out. The mage refused to take no for an answer, and unleashed a wave of water to break through. Their scales, I noticed, changed colour. Once a pale grey, they now were a dark blue. Was it a coincidence that the colour was the very same that my magical studies used to describe that element? I did not know.

As the fight went on, it became clear that my parents were outmatched. Despite the fact that Mother, a yellow mage, and Father, a green mage, were some of the most powerful mages I knew of, and even more so together, they were swatted aside easily by the chameleon. It was almost as if they saw all my parents' attacks coming before they did, the way they moved.  
Haha. Listen to me calmly describing this scene to you, as though it did not haunt my nightmares for centuries. But I digress. 

By the end of the incredibly short battle, both my parents were dead on the floor, and the chameleon took what they had come for: a book that sucked the light out of the room just by being there, and a glowing hourglass.

Then they left, as calmly as if they had just been on a friendly visit.

I was devastated. The minute they were gone, I scrambled to my parents' side, screaming in despair. There was no life left in them. I cried for what felt like hours over them, hugging them, begging them not to be gone. But there was nothing I could do.

Snow began to manifest on the walls, responding to my despair. For once in my life, I let it, knowing I would have to clean it up later, or risk breaking my illusion to Nicholas, that i had lost my sacred spark. Not that that's possible, but the disappointment I'd often see in his eyes when I used magic when he had none of his own faded after ai told him this, and I worked to suppress my magic when I was around him. A mistake that every entry-level student is taught to be wary of, but I acted out of love. I told myself it was fine.

I was far from fine. As my parents' funeral was prepared, I quickly worked to hide the magic before Nicholas would return. I had sent him a note telling him I missed him, and included a rather... Morbid joke. Before, between us it was common for us to joke about holding each other hostage and smothering each other with affection forever. I say morbid because of what happened next.

As I waited for Nicholas to return from school, I would have nightmares about my parents' death. Reliving it, knowing there was nothing I could have done to save them, knowing that I didn't even try... Sleep was infrequent to say the least, and I began to dread of losing him, too. At that point, Nicholas was my only family left, and he wasn't even legally family yet. If I lost him... well. 

On the day he was to return, Nicholas had agreed to meet me in the square. I found him buying flowers from an old friend, but I didn't see that until much later. All I saw was the handshake and the flowers in his hand.

And I jumped to conclusions faster than I ever had before, which was saying a lot. All my head was telling me was, "you've lost him, he's gone, you're all alone now."

And I freaked out. All the magic and anxiety I'd been trying to mask exploded out of me all at once.  
Around the manor, a violent blizzard began, which quickly overtook the entire town, killing hundreds. Adults... children... very few were spared. And those that did wouldn't live very long.

The magic rushed inward, too, turning my body to ice and my soul to ashes. I screamed at him that he had betrayed me, demanding to know why he would do this to me, shouting that hadn't I been hurt enough-- 

The guards took him away, and I, almost in reference to what felt like a cruel stab at my heart then, truly did lock him in chains, and took his prosthetic legs while I was at it, just to hurt him more. He wouldn't need them anymore, i thought.

Next in my quest of unfounded revenge, I stormed outside, back to the square. Somehow, that florist girl was still alive, shivering in the cold, half-buried in the snow. She couldn't run, anyhow, but I grabbed her wrist in my mangled claws, formed an icicle in my other hand, and thrust it into her backside, instantly killing her.

...Only then did the magic that was overwhelming me finally run out. 

Only then did my adrenaline finally crash.

And only then did it hit me what I'd become. 

I ran back into the cellar, freezing and shattering the locks I had put in my own way. But when I ripped Nicholas free, it was too late. His lifeless torso slumped to the floor.

I was a monster, a demon. No one around me was even alive, let alone me. And I tried, too. I tried clawing out this twisted black heart, to die along with the innocent man I had killed, but there wasn't any point. I was still conscious even after I managed it.

At that point, I froze it, and the flowers Nick had brought me, to preserve them, as a reminder to myself. I moved to place them into my bedroom, in an easy-to-see place, so I'd never forget them. Afterward, I tried to find Nicholas and his friend, and give them a proper burial at least, but both corpses had vanished without a trace. 

So I locked myself in my home, and began to claw at the walls, to keep my home from feeling like home. To keep myself uncomfortable in my eternal punishment. To remind myself what I was.

Apparently, some of the spirits of my men had made their way into old statues destroyed by the storm. I found them outside the front door one night, in a broken approximation of their salute formation.  
I screamed at them to get out. I didn't deserve their loyalty. I didn't deserve anything. But the poor fools stuck around, and kept people away from my home. For their safety, I told myself. Not mine.

The occasional meal would go missing the second I turned my back. For a moment, I would scream at them, in an attempt to scare them off, before calming down and deciding I deserved it anyway.

I would find the occasional wanderer in my manor, anywhere from cats to men to dinosaurs, and I froze them all when I caught them. Whether it was because I was in a bad mood, or because I was hoping that my home would gain a reputation of being a place of death, and people would leave me to my self-imposed solitude. But there was always someone else.

Technically, I was in the right to defend myself and my home from random passersby breaking into it. But it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth to remember, and adds to the baggage that I'll carry around until I finally dissolve.


End file.
